


Misguided Stellar Ghosts

by angeldescendant



Category: Devilman (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Lucifer!Ryo, M/M, before the fall - Freeform, child!Akira
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-03
Updated: 2018-05-03
Packaged: 2019-04-17 23:17:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14199789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angeldescendant/pseuds/angeldescendant
Summary: Lucifer was in heaven. He met a ghost there.





	Misguided Stellar Ghosts

**Author's Note:**

> I already have a ton of Heaven!Ryo plot bunnies tbh. Instead of releasing The Greatest Showman obsession I’ve already planned and drafted to death or the San Junipero AU I still haven’t fully realised, this ends up getting posted instead.

“I remember you. You were made of light.”  
— Maria Eugenia Calderara, from Poems of Exile; “I Still Don’t Know Your Name,”

* * *

  
They say time and space escape comprehension beyond the stars. Maybe then, this story may make sense. Here, where reality is a construct, Lucifer meets a ghost.

 

Ghosts do not exist _a priori_ , as the human mind may comprehend given their familiarity with linear time. It does not exist in this plane. Again, I digress. Lucifer meets a ghost.

 

Their first mortal had died and both ascended to heaven. The mortal would leave with the other angels while they awaited their new assignment.

 

There they met a wingless one. The child was drabbed in white and blue, wide brown eyes staring at the two wings on their back.

 

“You’re an angel?” he asked, eyes continuing to gleam. It dazzled the angel slightly.

 

“A _malakhim_. I am a messenger to humanity.”

 

“Can I touch it?” he pointed at a wing. “And uhm, are you supposed to be naked?”

 

The angel blinked. “Should I not be? This flesh was created by God.”

 

“Oh,” he looked at his clothes and ripped them off. Instantly they repaired themselves. “What about me though?”

 

“You were a mortal child,” the angel said, caressing the small mortal with their own stubby hands. “You were only moulded from clay, while we share the flesh from the divine.”

 

“That’s amazing!” he said blinking rapidly. The angel’s light was too strong for his translucent eyes. “You look really pretty! Are you a girl?”

 

“Such terms are meaningless. I can be whoever your peer-limited mind comprehends me to be.”

 

“Ahm, ok. I understand.” His expression betrayed him. “Uhm, because your hair reminds me of mushrooms back on earth. Do you have mushrooms in here too?”

 

“You do not need flora and fauna in the most high place. You only need to praise and worship our God.”

 

“Eh… wouldn’t that be boring though?” he said, craning his head. His hands winced as he tried touching the tips of their wings.

 

“Boring?”

 

“You know,” he said. “Finding no joy in the things you keep doing over and over and over…”

 

“No…” the angel stared.

 

“Uwaah…” the child stared back in delight. “I’ll work hard then to praise and worship his name then like you do.”

 

“As you should.”

 

“As I should!” he repeated. “Y’know, the angels that pass by all look the same and ignore me. But you’re different, even though you look the same… Eh, my head doesn’t feel good.”

 

“Your name. I will call it and you will know then.”

 

“Ok,” the child said. “I’m Akira. What’s yours?”

 

The angel could not answer. They had none.  


* * *

 

They were from the lowest order of angels. They had neither right nor need to have one. Names were given only to the archangels, rulers, the second and first spheres…

 

Akira always waited for him outside his shrine. He did not care if he gets blinded by his light or scalded by his skin as he touched his wings as a greeting.

 

“God assigned me to stay in this shrine to greet you angels,” he said, his chest puffing out with pride. “I can also make as many plants and mushrooms as I like!” With that, small daisy sprouts and dandelions began to bloom around their feet, along with mushrooms that were popping up along with tiny blades of grass.

 

“Having flora is not necessary in the kingdom of heaven,” the angel said. “It merely caters to human nostalgia. The past will only chain you.”

 

“Ehh? You don’t like the mushrooms? God might be inspired by them when he styled your hair-“

 

“We were created before them. Before _you_ ,” the angel pressed.

 

“Really? You were made before us? That’s so weird…” Akira said. “You are already pretty and perfect enough. Why did He create us?”

 

Again, the angel was left speechless.  


* * *

 

The angel took up the mantle of Satan when he was tasked along with his namesakes to quell harm from happening to earth. The second sphere was within reach.

 

“So you’re Satan now,” Akira said, still a child as Satan’s hair grew, now reaching past their ears and near the nape. “You’re getting prettier! And your wings are big!”

 

“When I become a member of the first sphere, you will have more wings to hold,” they said with unhinged pride.

 

“How many?”

 

“Three or more times as many.”

 

“Waaaaaaaahhhh?” His eyes were now orbs and made the angel’s stern façade crack a little. They noticed how they were two heads taller than the child. Akira still wore the same white smock, the same stubby feet and small hands he could easily fit in one of theirs. “Wow! I can’t wait!”

 

“You can. You have an eternity to wait,” said Satan as the child lay beside them, his tiny hand grasping three of their fingers.

 

“I was really starting to miss my parents too…” Akira trailed off. “But your visits make me happy.”

 

There were no pretensions in his words. He was not like the humans they carried over a lifetime ago. Satan wanted to say likewise, but found the child drifting off as he tried reaching out for their wings again. They extend one to touch the child’s lips.  


* * *

“I prayed for you,” Akira said as Satan lifted him up to touch the orbs of light on the top of his head.

 

“That wouldn’t be necessary,” Satan wanted to dismiss but found those words burning through their chest.

 

“I still prayed though. And I’m not going to tell you what I prayed! It’s a secret.”

 

It was easy asking the first sphere angels. Satan lets him twirl the light in the pommel of sabre as their bejewelled eyes stared at Akira. He only reached their torso, hair preserved by eternity, grin as wide as ever. Time did not exist for Akira. Satan could not say the same for that flame within their chest.  


* * *

  
The flame was dying. They knew the more he rose up and the less reason they had to descend to the shrine to see an Akira cursed to be a child forever. He was a mere mortal ghost. That was all that fate dictated him to be.

 

They had six wings now. Their time must be spent beside the almighty. They had a new name, but Akira always dubbed him with his original.

 

Akira barely reached his waist then as he bobbed along by his side, laughing in their reverie.

 

“I can’t believe you remember something from so long ago,” he said.

 

The angel finally learned how to smile properly. “How could I ever forget a single moment I spent with you?” There was a pause. “There’s a saying about us. That our bodies keep getting bigger, but our minds stay the same.”

 

“That’s true! You’ve gotten a lot bigger, Satan!” his eyes grew sombre. “I guess I don’t stand a chance of catching up.” He then shifted his gaze away and covered his mouth. “I’m sorry, Lucifer! It was just out of habit.”

 

“I don’t mind,” the Seraph said, looking in the horizon too. The sky was bluer now and reminded them of a world they hadn’t visited for aeons and probably wouldn’t visit once they become someone else.

 

“But you should. No change happens without a reason. The same goes for your name.” His hands were tightly clasped on his covered knees. “I’m glad though, that your visits here haven’t changed.”

 

He rubbed his head. His left hand was enough to fully cover, possibly crush it. “Of course they haven’t.”  


* * *

 

As the bringer of light, God said, they would no longer need to descend to where his fellow angels dwelled. As His most beloved, they must bring light and life beyond heaven, beyond the universes, beyond eternity. There was darkness, but they will become light, as He has spoken.

 

Lucifer asked God if another kind of light exists. The one that made something within him fester, blacken, hearkened to a kind of longing that they do not think heaven could fully satiate, that God could satiate.

 

God said that was the same feeling that compelled him to create mortals that would contort and shrivel and turn to dust when their time had come.

 

He called it hope.

 

 _Hope_ , Lucifer asked, _you call this unquenchable sadness such?_

_There was supposed to only be darkness and silence._ God spoke. _An existence forsook by change and uncertainty. But still, something within you listens. It beats. It doesn’t still._

_It’s maddening._

_And yet don’t you find it warm?_

_What if it doesn’t lead to anywhere? What if... if this is all what we could be? How can I bring light and life when what I desire is an end to this suffering?_

_Do you think despair is that end then?_ God’s voice remained gentle.

 

_I have loved someone more than I can obey your will._

 

 _Do you think he is that end then?_ God’s voice did not quiver.

 

Lucifer’s did. _If I descend, am I no longer your son?_

That was the last time Lucifer had the final word.  


* * *

 

“We’ll go to earth,” Lucifer said, carrying Akira in his arms. The child stared at the angel’s breasts. “You can touch them,” they nudge.

 

Akira shook his head. “There’s nothing for me back there. You said time is relative in this space. I am a ghost, you said. I’m already dead.”

 

“We do not know unless we descend.”

 

“I don’t want things to change,” Akira said. Despite the weight of time in his words, they still clung onto certainty. “You might die too. God might hate you if you don’t become the morning star.”

 

“I love you more than I fear Him,” Lucifer said with no hesitation. “I don’t care anymore if I lose my wings, my rank, this life… as long as I do not forget this,” they said as liquid poured down from Akira’s cheeks. “As long as I can remember this…” he said as his glowing fingers dried the tears. “Maybe in another lifetime, maybe-“

 

“There might be no end to this,” Akira said as the angel opened the gates below and fell, wings being plucked ferociously away by their descent and he could hear the angel scream. He could only embrace his neck as his legs started to fade. “I’d rather be sad than see you cry. It doesn’t suit someone as pretty as you.”

 

“Then you won’t see me do so,” Lucifer hushed him, enveloping the child, pretending that in another world- a better one- they would also be a child, mushroom hair intact, with Akira’s face hovering beside him. Both would be looking under the banner of starlight. They would have a name Akira would not have difficulty remembering.

 

“You promise,” Akira said as he wept and caressed the angel’s chest with his fading hands. “I’ll be there. I'll pray for us. I’ll wait. I’ll wait for you.”

 

There will be no tears. They won’t fall as the angel closed their eyes and felt Akira no more.  


* * *

Time and space is no longer a construct here. Hence, this story does not make sense. Demons existed before humankind had when Lucifer descended to earth and was smote down, reliving another self, forgetting their past ghosts, and doing it again and again, doomed to a cycle that may last perhaps forever.  
  
  
Lucifer did not know this. But maybe they will. I do. For one, that fool never kept their promise.

**Author's Note:**

> I read from this link (http://www.soulsoothersonline.com/satan.html) how the Biblical translations changed Satan’s origin story to muddle him to some kind of malevolent entity when he wasn’t really portrayed as such in the original texts :/ 
> 
> I finished Kyousogiga four years since I stopped midway. I found it too confusing, too kaleidoscopic for my unfettered and naïve teenage self to comprehend. Upon rewatching it, ONAs and all, there was this quick scene in the first episode that I couldn’t get out of my head even from four years ago. It was a simple and yet poignant exchange that I thought I’d pay a homage to it with this quick fic. There’s also a tiny ATLA homage in there. Thank you for reading.


End file.
